315 
will return to your {people, heal their diseases, and restore the old 
religion of prayer and the offering of smoke from the medicine-pipe, 
now so fallen into decay through Christian teaching that the Indians 
have lost their earlier power.” Acting on these instructions, as he 
claimed. Cough Child hired drummers and singers, daubed white 
paint on his person and his clothes, painted a thunder-bird on his 
blanket as a visible token of his mandate, and held a public dance. 
With his breath alone he seemed to heal patients who were brought 
to him from all around. His fame spread far and wide. Cree 
Indians in the north sent messengers asking him to come and cure 
them, Sarcee went from C.^algary to Iteseech his aid. An Indian from 
distant TAah brought a child that Cough Cdiild might restore its 
eyesight, but sadly returned home with his cliild still bliinl. Every 
patient the prophet cured bought from him a feather to wear when- 
ever it thundered, and, like the i)rophet, daubed his cheeks with 
white paint that the thunder might ])ass him by. Many wore their 
feathers at all times,’ thereby acknowledging the leadership of 
Cough Child and their enlistment among his followers. They had 
the feeling of membership in a regular society, although (so far as 
we know) their leader had given it no name aiul did not organize 
an annual dance. It remained an embryonic society until its dis- 
appearance, because the conditions of life had changed and the old 
organizations and beliefs were rapidly passing away.- 
The greatest religious event in the Assiniboine year was the 
sun-dance. They often speak of it in the course of the year, and 
look forward to its immediate arrival with joy, respect, anfl venera- 
tion.”*" The leader was a man who had inherited the privilege and 
received the necessary instruction from his father. After a cere- 
monial buffalo-hunt to provide the necessary food, the united tribe 
moved to some previously chosen site and ei'ected a sacred pole 
which had been cut down after the manner of an enemy and dragged 
to the cam]) amid great rejoicing. To this pole, and to the rafters 
of a gigantic lodge, the people lashed their offerings to the Great 
Spirit or his manifestation, the sun-god, and the leader addressed 
1 In 1921 a Snrrfe woman living on a n'scTvo noar Calgary liatl ona of Cough Child's feathars 
attachf'd to livr nvfkiaae, and a visitor from tlic Assiniboine reserve at Morley wore anotlier in her hair, 
‘-Cough Child’s vision of the Great Spirit, his rcwolt against Christianity, and at1em|iled ^restor- 
ation of older beliefs and eusloms bear some analogy to the Messianistic phenomena that dheurred 
among other tribe.s, notably the IrorpioLs anti the interior titbes of llntish Columbia, at the end of 
the eighteenth and early |tart of the nineteenth centuries, Sec part 1, p. 183 f. 
3 De Smet : vol. lit, p. 937. 
